The Virgin appears three-quarter length at the centre of the compressed composition, framed by a cloth of honour. She presents the naked infant on a white cloth, perhaps a reference to the sacrament of the Eucharist. To the left, the oldest of the Magi kneels to worship the child. Joseph appears to the right of the composition, cap in hand. Behind him are the ox and ass, and an abbreviated landscape background framed by the rudimentary structure of the stable. In the distance are mounted figures and camels, perhaps the entourage of the Magi, with the star above.

In correspondence dated 1990, Lorne Campbell agreed that this work and the related composition (formerly in Madrid) were correctly attributed to the ‘Circle of Hugo van der Goes'. He added that there is no evidence that these compositions are copies after a hypothetical lost work by Goes, as suggested in some literature including Friedländer.

A related composition, described as inferior in some literature, was formerly in the Don Juan de Valencia Collection, Madrid (illustrated in Friedländer, IV, pl. 21 b).

Mons. James Shepherd was a master at the Catholic college of Prior Park, Bath, and author of Reminiscences of Prior Park (London, 1894). The Victoria Art Gallery's collection of works from Midford Castle near Bath was bequeathed or given to Shepherd by another master at the college, Mons. Charles Parfitt. The Midford Castle estate had been bequeathed to Parfitt by Mrs Jane Conolly, a bequest which was unsuccessfully contested by Mrs Conolly's nephew in 1871-72. It is uncertain if the collection was originally accumulated by Mrs Conolly's late husband, the eminent barrister Charles Conolly, or whether, as is traditionally supposed, it came into the family by the marriage of his son to the Italian Marchesa Luisa di Sant' Agata.